Gordon Williamson

U-Boat Tender Weichsel

U-Boat Escort Ship Erwin Wassner

Some of my U-Boat support ship ribbons with the ships.

First the U-Boat Tender Donau

WElcome to GMIC and thanks for resurecting this one. I need to dig out some more photos of other ships with their ribbons and add these to this thread, then I can add some of the shore establishments etc.

Superb ! Thanks for sharing.

Yup, amazing what some gentle brushing with an old soft toothbrush will do. :rolleyes:

Not entirely unusual. I've seen others similar with lower ranks. Note that less than two months later he is promoted to Unteroffizier. I'm guessing that the transfer at one rank lower was until he completed his full military "conversion" training and was ready to be allocated to his first unit.

Note the last two entries. I have seen the Feldgendarmerie Gorget listed in the kit issue pages before, but have never seen this

The issue of 2 x Feldgendarmerie cuffbands, and a Feldgendarmerie sleeve eagle. :beer:

But here is what makes it really interesting, his kit issue page. Something I have never seen in a Feldgendarmerie Soldbuch before this one.

Nothing exciting in the way of awards. His "Flower Wars" Medals would have been gained with the Police, and a KVK2 with the Feldgendarmerie

His units

Feldgendarmerie Abt. (mot) 591

Kreiskommandantur 788

Feldgendarmerie Trupp 747

Kreiskommandantur 747

Feldgendarmerietrupp 780

Feldgendarmerie Abt. 698

He was in from beginning to end, the book being issued in Serptember 1939, and was one of the original tranches of personnel tranmsferred from the civil Gendarmerie into the Feldgendarmerie. Note his civil occupation is given as Polizei Wachmeister

And the inside face of the cover, covered in blue oilcloth.

Just arrived today thanks to Ian Jewison.

This guy went to a huge amount of effort to keep his Soldbuch from being damaged. The edges are bound in leather, machine stitched to the cover

There are some pretty accurate copies of this badge circulating at the moment. This one looks pretty good though and lacks some of the instant "tells" you can find on the better fakes. The eagles claws look strange however, I'd expect the talon of the eagles claw to extend right across the arm of the swastika, as shown here. Hard to tell from your photo if yours is like this. Examples I have owned have all had a very pale gilt finish and yours seems much darker almost like Brass when it should be Zinc.

STrange that there seems to be surface wear, yet no Zinc showing through.

Not a "one looker" for sure. Scans rather than photos would make it easier to tell, but from these shots, I'd have some concerns about this one..

Nice early Tombak badge even if it is denazified, - I like it. :beer:

Yep, I'd say that has to be her. This vessel certainly started out its life as an M15/M16 type, but with modified stern to give it the squared transom, and new funnel / superstructure. The general hull shape, bow rake and layout of the forward part including the gun position however, is all typical M15/16.

There were other former WW1 Minesweepers converted to Tenders but logically there is no reason your father would have a photo of one of these rather than his own Flotilla Tender.

I'ds say its a fairly safe bet that this is Von der Groeben.

I think there is a very high probability that the photo shows Von der Groeben.

Some factors -

The distinctive taffrail on the transom is something that none of the later Minesweeper types featured- so points to a modified earlier boat. The tall relatively narrow funnel also suggests a modified earlier type of boat.

3 R-Boot Flotille had two Tenders during its life, the Von der Groeben, then the Gazelle and the boat in the photo is definitely NOT the Gazelle.

All the other craft in the Flotilla were small Motor-Minesweeper R-Boats. so the only larger boat likely to be seen around the moorings for the Flotilla was the Tender.

Add to this that the photo of your father shows him wearing the Watch Keepers badge, and that he would not likely be on watch around a boat from a Flotilla other than his own.

All this to me points to the photo being taken alongside Von der Groeben.

Yes, a super photo Ian. Photos of Streifendienst are hard enough to find but this is the first I've ever seen of Streifendienst in Panzer uniforms.

Being attached to Streifendienst type units during convalescence seems to be a common theme.

Weitze has a rather nice early orange piped visor, pre-the formation of Feldgendarmerie so it has to be Recruiting. Make a nice match for your Waffenrock, but price is very high though !

No, the only thing they wore was the aiguilette, that combined with the special Ausweis they carried was their only special identifying insignia. They wore the Waffenfarbe plus any cyphers etc of their original unit. I believe that for most, they just "passed through" the Streifendienst between unit allocations, often when they were recovering from injury or illness, until fit for re-allocation.

Interesting Soldbuch, can you show some more ?

It could also be for recruiting - either way, excellent cap!

Don

Possible, but unlikely I think as I'd guess this is a wartime rather than prewar cap and Recruiting changed from Orange to White in 1939. It could however possibly be corps of Engineers which went to Orange from 39 to 42. Given that Feldgendarmerie was Orange all the way through, its still the most likely, statistically.

I take the point though. I think we all tend to assume the colour relates to the branch we are most interested in. When was the last time anyone listed a pink piped cap as for staff of a Tire Depot, Motor Park, or Motor Testing unit. No they are all Panzer

Its a natural instinct to assume what we pick up is for the best possible unit with that colour. :cheers:

Certainly doesn't look faded, and the blue is much lighter than I'd expect from medical.

Does anyone have any references that list pale blue prior as early as 1935, or at least prior to the Nachschub blue for the Field Divisions ?

A very interesting cap. Certainly looks like the paler blue rather than medical like the one attached. Blue also tend to "disappear" when converted to b/w so that would explain the difficulty in seeing any Waffenfarbe in the wartime photo.

However the only references I have seen to the pale blue piping is for the field divisions. The only blue I can find in 1935 is the medical blue which as Paul suggests, could be fading - or of course just a variation in the dye colour. I have lots of variant colours of orangerot on the various pieces of Feldgendarmerie stuff I have so wouldn't be surprised to see colour variants in medical blue.

If a pale blue piped Luft cap does exist then almost certainly an orange would too. The problem will always be identifying what might be a pale blue against a faded or dye variant medical blue and with orange, some Nachrichten brown can have a distinctive orangey hue.

The book I am working on is some way from being finished but I'd really like to tie down definitively whether the colours related to Feldgendarmeerie (pale blue and orange) did exist on visor caps.

Indeed, it is a very complicated subject.

It does seem that there was a huge number of police type formations within the military.

It appears that the Bahnhofswache and Zugwache were "sub-sets" of the Streifenfienst service. At a higher level you can say that there were really three -

The Military Police "Proper" (Feldgendarmerie of the Heer, Luftwaffe, Waffen-SS and Marineküstenpolizei)

The Plain Clothes Military Police (Geheime Feldpolizei)

The lower level "disciplinary" units (Streifendienst, incl. Bahnhofswache, Streifendienst, Kommandantur )

Not too much different to the British who had at various times

Military Police Proper ( Military Mounted Police, Military Foot Police (Red Caps), Field Security Police (Green Caps), Vulnerable Points Police (Blue Caps),Traffic Police (White Caps)

Plain Clothes Military Police - The SIB (Special Investigations Branch)

Lower level - Regimental Police (RP), Royal Air Force Police (RAFP), Royal Navy Police (RNP), Royal Marines Police (RMP), Gurkha Military Police (GMP).

There is a reciprocal arrangement between branches of the service which allows for instance an RAF Policemen to arrest a Royal Navy sailor etc, but generally speaking RP, RAFP, RNP, etc tend to "take care of thier own" whilst the RMP (i.e. the Army Military Police) have a much wider ranging remit and is a much much bigger organisation.

So really, what seems like a huge number of military police type formations in the German military isn't all that unusual.

(By the way, the Regimental march of the RMP is a German tune, "Die Wachtturm")